Written by Last night I had a blast with Steve and Nigel from The Adelaide Show, a long-running local podcast.
We chatted about climate change and a little bit of my journey on that subject, before I blew their minds with some of the possibilities of nuclear energy in South Australia.
I did the Is that news? quiz, where Steve and I had to guess the fake nuclear-themed news story from Australian history, sat on the Visa Council, where we decide whether someone can come to Adelaide or not based on a disparaging tweet, and helped polish off the Drink of the Week, a 2010 Gramps shiraz from the Barossa.
Here is a promo video, the podcast goes out tonight, listen in and share widely!
Also a BBC podcast on ‘Can we learn to live with nuclear technology?’
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34114392
Of the four commentators three say there are other options and the fourth says it is rational but too many people are not rational. My guess is that old silver ponytail hippies will lap up the podcast and nod approvingly but radio shows will get more of a Gen X&Y demographic. Hopefully the latter will control public opinion before things slide too far.
Contrast Brian Cox’s program which calmly considered risks and benefits of nuclear power http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03hvn5x
There are several other celebrity physicists who need to follow Brian’s example.
A limited audience but I’m very certain that the drip, drip, drip… strategy is important. Once again, Ben, your unstinting efforts to make the case are very much appreciated.
Since the podcast is long it needs some recommended hit points to aim for e.g. electric cars at 0h43m. Re Brian Cox as with Jay Weatherill I formerly had an indifferent opinion but I now see both dudes have depth to them. It takes courage to speak in favour of nuclear when peer pressure demands negativity.
While my opinion of Brian Cox and Jay Weatherill has gone up alas I cannot say the same for Ross Garnaut
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/nuclear-fuel-cycle-royal-commission-economist-ross-garnaut-believes-in-renewables-ahead-of-nuclear/story-fnii5yv7-1227519341518
I had doubts a couple of years ago when Prof Garnaut endorsed burning of NT savanna as a net carbon sink. Now I presume Prof G has insights on how SA will cope with loss of coal baseload, rising gas prices and job killing high wholesale and retail power costs due in part to renewables subsidies. I hope at some point the Royal Commission intends to call up some hard hitting pragmatists.
Proposed SA mining project wants 583 MW of power. Good luck with that since the Northern and Playford coal stations 760 MW and Torrens Island A baseload gas 400 MW are about to close. Maybe there’ll be a way to run crushers and conveyor belts 24/7 on intermittent energy.
At the moment the wholesale price of SA electricity is 4X that of the other eastern states; see the table top right in the AEMO home page http://www.aemo.com.au/
SA is the state with the highest wind penetration around 30%. The theory was that it was supposed to make the wholesale power price lower
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2014/5/8/climate/wind-not-lifting-wholesale-power-prices-study
Perhaps the theory needs a bit of tinkering.